Police "99% sure" remains are missing woman

Police
confirm skeletal remains and clothing have been found inside a vehicle crews
pulled out of a canal in Punta Gorda. The car was found blocks from where a
64-year-old woman disappeared in 1993.

The missing
woman, Frances Hendrickson, was last seen by a neighbor driving her 1987 light
blue colored Buick station wagon down her block.

Punta Gorda
police started their investigation on the 3700 block of Whippoorwill
Boulevard for a report of a missing woman on June 30,
1993.

Throughout
the years, divers followed lead after lead in the canals only to find dead end
after dead end. "It turned out to be a roof, or it turned out to be a porta
potty, or another mass," explains Capt. Tom Lewis with the Punta Gorda Police
Department.

Detectives
always suspected Hendrickson drove her car off the road into a canal in Punta
Gorda Isles.

"I don't
recall seeing at that time, nor does anyone else, an oil slick," points out John
Feuchack, who lives near where police found the car.

About two
years ago, the case was reopened using updated sonar technology to search city
canals for the missing woman's vehicle.

Wednesday,
using even newer, more advanced sonar from the Lee County Sheriff's Office,
divers discovered a light blue station wagon in the water behind the
intersection of Whippoorwill
Boulevard and Eider Street, just blocks from
Hendrickson's home.

"Almost a
soon as we hit the water we came to this area because it's close to her home and
we located the vehicle," Capt. Lewis told reporters.

This area
was previously searched by air and water numerous times, but the advanced sonar
made the discovery possible.

"I walked
seawalls looking for marks, oil slicks, looking for a glint in the water. It
never came up," says Charles Gibbs. Now retired, he was the first police officer
dispatched to investigate the missing person case 20 years ago.

Even after
leaving the PD in 1999, Gibbs tells us he never forgot about the case and was
happy to see Thursday's results. Saying, "It's a lot of closure. I wanted to be
here this morning to see it come up just to know that we finally found her."

The Punta
Gorda Police Dive Team secured the location and an operation to recover the
vehicle started around 9:00 a.m. Thursday. The car was pulled from the canal
around 10:30 a.m. as residents crowded to watch the
action.

Officials
have not yet confirmed if the car found belonged to Hendrickson, but say they
are 99 percent sure that it is hers and that the skeletal remains are her as
well.

"She was
really cautious so her backing out or driving into a canal like that seems kind
of strange," said a friend of Hendrickson, Beatrice
Nichols.

Officials
say in 1993, far fewer people were living in the area and it's possible no one
noticed the car fall in the water.

State
forensic experts collected the remains and will compare them to a sample of
Hendrickson's DNA to see if they match.

Lewis says
his department never stopped thinking about Hendrickson's disappearance and was
determined to solve it. "Everyone talks about this case. It's never going away.
It's always in the hearts of our people because we hate to leave anything
unturned." he says.

Hendrickson
has a son and a daughter. They both live out of state. Police contacted them
with details of Thursday's search.

Police
don't think there is anything suspicious about the skeletal remains. All signs
suggest the driver simply drove off the road into the water.

The Florida
Department of Law Enforcement, representatives from Mote Marine, and the Lee
County Sheriff's Office are also assisting.

After a gunman stormed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in South Florida Wednesday and killed 17 people, a student who survived the massacre said suspected shooter Nikolas Cruz could have been stopped if a teacher had a firearm as well.